


among all dead things (nothing matters)

by kookvmelanin



Series: the sun is in the sky (we burn for it) [7]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Introspection, Luffy Being Luffy, M/M, Minor Monkey D. Luffy/Trafalgar D. Water Law, Past Character Death, Pre-Relationship, Suicidal Ideation, Vignette, law will be okay one day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:55:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27191378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kookvmelanin/pseuds/kookvmelanin
Summary: watching people die is nothing new for law but seeing people live never fails to overwhelm him.the boy from the white town, a tragedy over sixteen years
Relationships: Boa Hancock & Monkey D. Luffy, Boa Hancock & Trafalgar D. Water Law, Donquixote "Corazon" Rosinante & Trafalgar D. Water Law, Donquixote Doflamingo & Trafalgar D. Water Law, Heart Pirates & Trafalgar D. Water Law, Monkey D. Luffy & Roronoa Zoro, Monkey D. Luffy/Trafalgar D. Water Law
Series: the sun is in the sky (we burn for it) [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1882768
Comments: 9
Kudos: 90





	among all dead things (nothing matters)

**Author's Note:**

> twitter: luffysmelanin
> 
> my ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/seilahdesigns

**1.**

Flevance has been white for as long as Law could remember.

The town grew and existed on the very colour and everything it meant- riches and power and all things success and purity. Law didn’t know anything but this town. He had always been a quiet kid and observed the town with as little disinterest as he did most things. Law was the son of the most trusted doctor in all of Flevance- he wanted to be like that too but different.

Law liked to open things up- to dissect them and learn just how they managed to exist and in the process maybe fix them. At a very young age, he decides he wants to become a surgeon. He decides that bodies are only ever so interesting when one can take a glance at all their screwed up insides. Fixing them is secondary for now. His father teaches him all that he can and he loves it- loves knowing every name for the bones in his hand and in his chest and in his legs. Loves knowing every weak spot a human can have and loves knowing that they can practically be brought back from the dead- it is a powerful thing to be a surgeon.

Law grows up with a young sister. A bubbly girl with no taste for cutting people open but a sister none the less and he loves her like he loves his gentle mother and his patient father. He grows with a taste for soft things and the material of his cherished hat is indicative of it. Maybe he has a taste for soft things because of his mother and her own brand of gentle kindness as she coaxes him outside with her soft hands- tells him to play in the garden. He usually finds something living and maybe something dead that he also wants to cut up as he goes outside- he doesn’t know what it means to have that urge.

All Law knows is that he like cutting things open the same way he loves soft things- it shouldn’t be strange that he has a taste for white which is as soft as it comes. His mother tells him to enjoy the world and takes him and his sister to a festival in town. It’s nice, it’s soft and from his small height he can watch people’s muscles move as they walk and wonder what it would be like to see them working without the skin.

The white town is a thriving one but that is not to say that things never go wrong. It goes wrong with the way that there is a disease that sometimes takes over people- turns their skin white and their insides failing and there is nothing anyone can do about it- not even his father, not even a surgeon, that he knows.

Law is a calm, quiet kid with bundles of patience and he doesn’t flinch when dissecting things in school but watching his sister collapse and the tell-tale signs of white over her arm- he starts to panic.

He hates the feeling.

+

Everything falls apart- literally.

His father is frantic as he tries to make Lami as comfortable as possible. His mother is crying in a corner for her child and Law ignores the patches of white over his own skin. Amber Lead Disease, they say there is no cure and though Law is made to go to church he is not a believing boy but for a moment watching his sister grow paler and paler, watching the town go quiet and the boats disappear- Law prays for a miracle. He prays that people will live.

People don’t live and the town goes up in flames. Foreigners have taken over the town and they set everything on fire like they’re just an anthill. Law panics and panics and panics as the cries outside grow louder and the people in the masks and the uniforms go straight towards the hospitals first. Everything goes up in flames and Law sees his father cry for the first time. He can hear his muffled shouting at whoever is on the other side of the transponder snail. He can hear him curse them for abandoning them. Law curses them too.

The kids from school tell him they have a way to leave. They want Law to come with but he can’t he has a family and he can’t leave them. Sister tells him _There is always hope_ and in his grief and sobbing body, he decides to believe her. So he can’t leave his family if there is a way out.

The invaders burn everyone they see like they’re trying to purify them. It doesn’t make sense to Law- they were already covered in white to begin with why bother?

He hides his sister in a closet when the flames get too close to their house. He doesn’t want her to hear the people die by fire. She was too sweet and he loved her too much for that. He’ll keep her as safe as he can so they can actually go to a festival next time around.

Law finds his parents’ dead bodies not a couple minutes after that. They weren’t burned by fire but they were filled with holes and blood all around. Law can’t stop the tears from filling his eyes as he hugs their dead bodies- they’re still warm with a life that they don’t have anymore. He can’t even hold on longer before they try to kill him too so he runs. He runs as they try to kill him.

The city is so silent now and only the sounds of burning flesh remains as he walks through the streets- his mind in a daze. They had killed the Sister and all the kids from his school. The people who said they would let them live, they all killed them in the street after killing their families- Law decides he hates them all.

The hospital had also gone up in flames and his sister dies waiting for him to come back. Every sob in his throat feels like all the bullets that fell on this day.

Flevance, the White Town, perished.

Law breaks and he can’t ignore the slow white growing on his skin anymore.

+

Crawling underneath dead bodies, both burned and drowned and filled with holes, Law curses himself for ever having hope.

People would die- he’d kill them all himself with the time he had left.

**2.**

Donquixote Doflamingo is more wolf than whatever bird he is trying to imitate.

He looks like all the bad people he had never gotten to meet in person. Not like the bad people who tore his entire home down- more like those who might have sent them to do the job but Doflamingo was different. Doflamingo was a tower of a man and if he looked close enough maybe he could see his fangs from his still small, weak body. Law has bombs strapped to his neck and he’s ready to take him and everyone else in that room.

He wants to kill people- he wants everything to die and Law wants to do it himself. Doflamingo looks at him like he’s crazy with those fake glasses that have him looking like the Devil himself but Law has already seen hell so it doesn’t terrify him as much as he thinks it does. He tells Doflamingo where he came from with the most honest smile he can muster- it stretches at all the thin muscles under his skin and he can feel the laugh of bitter resentment bubble in his chest.

Hearing this, Doflamingo smiles with all his teeth, his laugh resonates throughout the room in a way that syncopates the ever turning sounds of machinery. He has three years to live.

Law smiles- he just made the Devil laugh like he was the crazy one.

+

**3.**

Law can’t be scared anymore.

He came from the White Town and it doesn’t matter how much Buffalo or Baby 5 tell him he’s an idiot for staying- it doesn’t matter that he can’t hold a sword or a gun yet he’ll learn. He’ll become a part of the _Family_ and he’ll get to do everything he wants.

It’s been a week since he got to the port city run by the Family and the craziest thing that’s happened yet is him getting grabbed by the head by another mountain of a man and thrown into the metal scrap piles. He’s bleeding and hurting all over the hard metal impact. His mind is buzzing with pain, confusion and the lust for revenge.

Who was this man to throw him away like he didn’t deserve to be a part of a Family like this?

Choking on the blood in his lungs, Law decides that he hates this Corazon.

It continues for the rest of the week. An endless cycle of him simply existing too close in the presence of Doflamingo’s bastard brother and his frail body thrown out a window or off the balcony or on the off occasion into the polluted waters surrounding them. The man is a klutz who can’t take two steps without burning himself alive but he has the power to throw him away and he doesn’t stop. Law hates the feeling of being thrown away. He hates him- he hates him, he hates him, he hates him and he burns with the want to kill him.

They said there’s a blood law in the Donquixote family one that means he can’t hurt any of the executives but what would it matter if that waste of space klutz ended up dead? Lami hadn’t lived, his parents hadn’t lived and neither did Sister and all the other kids, so why the hell does he get to? Why does he get to stay silent as much as he’d like and not because they’re still men with fire for purity chasing him rancid? Why does he and all that stupid makeup get to live so freely and do what he wants with Law? He hates it- he hates him. Who would even miss him when he’s gone?

The knife pierces his chest and goes through all the black feathers from his coat and Law doesn’t feel anything but sick satisfaction. It’s the first time he’s stabbed someone- his hands don’t really shake so much as they feel like stone but he was able to do it- was able to kill someone who didn’t deserve to live and he should feel happy about it. He is but he also isn’t.

The adrenaline that had been bubbling in his gut turns to dread when the sound of Buffalo’s scandalized shriek reaches him. He’s been through Hell but he doesn’t want to know what will happen to him for hurting the brother of Donquixote Doflamingo.

When Buffalo squeals and when Corazon tells Doflamingo then Law is dead without even getting the chance to properly kill someone.

He’s going to die.

**4.**

Law doesn’t die. Buffalo keeps his mouth shut- probably for blackmail that he’ll have to pay out some day. Law doesn’t die and for some reason Corazon doesn’t tell his brother a thing.

He becomes a part of the Family and he lives. Law will get to kill people, at least he lived.

**5.**

He is a part of the family for three years.

They go up and down the North Blue conquering, stealing and killing everything in their path. Law learns how to hold a gun, to slam someone down with enough force to shatter their spine and to cut through someone’s arm without sweating. The first time he killed- he didn’t feel a thing. No rush of anxiety, no pulsing heartbeat, no veins full of adrenaline. Nothing but blood pumping as it does and white growing on skin and him- just not caring anymore.

He wants to become a doctor. He wanted to become a doctor, once upon a time. He wants to be a killer.

The dissonance does nothing to deter him.

He’s growing sicker by the day and white keeps growing, pure and bright all over his body. It doesn’t matter to him- Law is ready to die and he plans on taking even more people with him. So, he lets Doflamingo place his hands over his as he readily pushes some poor fool’s head down into a barrel of water. He lets his hands relish in the sensation of a knife digging into someone’s neck- loves discovering what’s hidden in the bones of their bodies. He, for some reason, is not so favourable to guns but he knows how to use them and how to shoot without his body falling backwards. He’s learned about the perfect places to torture and the perfect places to kill.

See, they’re dead and he’s not. There’s something in that rush filling sensation alone that makes him cling to each memory of death caused by his whitening hands. He doesn’t give it a name. He’s not stupid enough to do it.

**6.**

His real name is Trafalgar D. Water Law.

It shouldn’t be all that important but at a young age he was told to keep it a secret. The first people he tells in the Family are, Baby 5 and Buffalo. They call it lame and unimportant and he thinks it almost the same but his father had told him that it was important and that was enough to make him keep his mouth shut- for the most part at least. Baby 5 tells him the white on his skin is growing worse. He doesn’t need the reminder that his calculations might have been off.

He had been ten and dying- give him a break.

Before he knows it Corazon has him by the back of his shirt- disoriented he can barely figure out where he is being taken before his body is settled down in an alley far from the port where they had been waiting for Doflamingo.

Hearing Corazon speak is a shock in itself. Corazon had never told his brother what he did and Law was able to bribe Buffalo all those years ago in forgetting about the whole thing so he always knew that on top of being a klutz and a waste of space he was a liar. But to know he had lied to all of them is something else. Who even does that? He says he doesn’t want him around Doflamingo and it doesn’t make any sense. With all that clown makeup Law thought he’d be a bit funnier.

He has a strange power- a devil fruit user- and Law doesn’t understand anything that’s going on. Everything about him is a farce besides his most ridiculous part. Corazon is a liar who says things Law doesn’t understand.

Corazon calls Doflamingo a monster- an evil natured being with no humanity, like he’s supposed to care. Law wants to become whatever monster he knows his own brother to be. He wants to be able to destroy things with his own hands and his own power. Law doesn’t need to be anything close to good if he’s just going to die in the end.

At least Law learns a little more about the D. but even that doesn’t make sense. If he’s from some fated family of monsters, then why is he dying so pathetically? If he’s a D. and it is so terrifying that the very people in Mariejois make their clan a scare tactic for children, then why does he still feel so terribly insignificant?

“In some places, there are people who call the Family of D., “ _Sworn enemies of the gods.”_

For some reason those words shake him to the very core but maybe he’s too young to understand why so he shakes it off the best he can. He doesn’t care about this name; he doesn’t care about how unimportant he is- he just wants people to die. It’s the only thing that feels like something.

Corazon wants him away from the Family to look for a cure?

It’s laughable.

+

Law gets kidnapped and thrown into some dingy of a boat before he knows it.

He tries to run and scream and tell him to let him go but unfortunately he’s sickly and dying and far too weak to do any damage in his state. Corazon is speaking to someone over the transponder snail and he gets called _Rosinante-_ it’s weird. He hears the word _mission_ and if this man is a navy soldier he might as well fall into the ocean with his hands tied behind his back before he ever lets him help him. People who bleed Navy Blue make him sick.

Corazon says he doesn’t.

+

He hadn’t expected going to a hospital to feel so painful. If the memories of his own burning down- if his sister dying waiting, and his parents desperate and filled with holes in their bodies before they all went down in purified flames, weren’t enough, he gets treated like he’s not even human. It isn’t fun to tremble with memories of his past- he hates the feeling. His own tears hurt worse than dying.

He only cries the first time; after that he becomes too preoccupied with keeping Corazon from beating up all the doctors who turn him away just as savagely as the first. Law’s attempts never really work and they make something of a name of themselves- that survivor from the White Town and the tall crazy man who keeps destroying hospitals. Corazon is just as hot headed as he is hopeful each time they reach a new town for the next six months- it keeps him going, he can admit that just a little.

One night he gets woken up by the sound of a bottle crashing into the ground. He keeps his cool and pretends to keep on sleeping. He’s still sleepy but he can hear Corazon’s drunken rambling.

_”…You’re still a rude little boy, and hearing you say ‘I’ll die soon’ is heart breaking…”_ It’s hard to pretend that he’s still sleeping when he hears those words being spoken to him. What does it matter to him if he dies?

_“You…stabbed me…that day but…”_ Of course he’d remember that and Law doesn’t want to admit that he feels a little guilty about it, _“it didn’t hurt at all! I know you were the one who was in pain! You poor thing!”_ Why does Corazon care so much about his pathetic, insignificant life anyways?

“ _Law!”_

The tears sting in his eyes as Corazon waddles away behind him and he can finally let them go.

What did Law ever do to deserve someone as kind as him?

+

He learns that calling him _“Cora-san”_ puts a smile to his face. It’s impossibly big and stupid but it feels nice to look at. It feels nice to know that Law can make someone who cares about him happy.

And when Doflamingo calls, his body littered with white, he doesn’t feel the need to go back. Looking at his white hands, he doesn’t want to call it hopeful, but it feels like something worth holding on to.

He learns about a Devil Fruit that could cure him. Cora-san is still smiling, bright and wide and Law doesn’t want to feel hopeful. He doesn’t.

It’s a shame, he starts feeling really sick because now he only has the option to hope he doesn’t die before the year is over. He wants to run away from the Family with Cora-san.

He doesn’t want to die.

+

In the middle of a storm Cora-san tells him he isn’t a part of the Navy. He’s a liar but it’s okay.

Law still loves him all the same.

+

Rubeck is ice cold and Law feels like he’s at the end of his rope.

The town is covered in snow for all the meters that make up the island. He waits for Cora-san outside in the cold even if it makes him shiver. Watching him run straight into a den of pirates, Law thinks of all the months they’ve spent together. Cora-san was always trying to impress him with his power, always trying to make him laugh and usually ended setting himself on fire- that usually did the trick. He had the habit of picking him up and swinging him around to get him to smile and no matter how much he protested or whined Law was never able to make him stop smiling like the idiot that he was. His whining never did anything to faze him and Cora-san’s clingy behaviour never made Law hate him.

One day when apparently Law had been staring at his hands for too long, Cora-san had lifted him into the air and told him not to worry about how much white was growing on his skin and to be hopeful of that moment when they all disappear. He said, _It’ll be proof that you lived, so hang in there okay?_

Law smiles a little to himself. He can’t wait to have lived.

+

The Op-Op fruit tasted awful, but it’s nothing compared to seeing Cora-san fall over and bleed into the snow.

He has the devil fruit now but he doesn’t know how to use it. It really isn’t magic. He starts to panic because the last time someone he cared about was filled with holes, it hadn’t ended well. But Cora-san is still alive so it has to be different now. Cora-san makes him deliver a letter and he makes a promise that they’ll get off the island and he trusts him.

Law is still afraid of Navy men; they still make him sick but he has to do as Cora-san asked if he wants to save that island. He has to find a way to save Cora-san. He makes the mistake of trusting this navy man. He makes the mistake of picking him because he was alone and Law was scared of them seeing his skin and killing him before he had the chance to live.

He makes the biggest mistake of his life, meets Vergo on his secret mission for the first time and ends up beaten black and blue.

**+**

There’s something in the sky and Law is scared because it means Doflamingo is here.

His body feels weak and tired but for some reason Cora-san has the biggest smile on his face. It feels different than all the rest. Like false reassurance and hope so tightly wound around his body- Law has to believe him.

He gets hidden in a treasure chest of all places and Law can hear them fighting outside like Cora-san is the bad one here. Cora-san is good, better than any Navy man and better than any pirate- they all don’t seem to know that. Doflamingo doesn’t seem to know anything about his own brother.

Cora-san is a liar but he always knew so he shouldn’t be speaking like it’s the last thing he can say to him. He’s going to live and Doflamingo isn’t going to find them and everything is going to be okay. Doflamingo can yell all he wants to have him but Law is never going back with that man- he doesn’t want to die for him, he’ll never die for him.

Doflamingo says something strange that makes the panic in his chest grow tenfold. He’s scared and he wants to help, he needs to help him. Law used to kill with Doffy and he doesn’t want to find out how he would try to kill his own brother. But Cora-san isn’t going to die, he won’t. Cora-san had told him he loved him, so Law refuses for him to die not until he can make sounds again and he can say it back. Not until they get the chance to live and to live free.

_“Law won’t obey you! Doffy…”_ Cora-san is right there in front of him, he knows it. Maybe if he hits hard enough he’ll be able to reach him.

_“…Affect by White Lead disease, he was doomed to die in three years…But he got over it…”_ He needs to save him. He needs to try just like Cora-san did.

“ _He’s not the same Law…who lost track of himself and came to visit a crazy pirate that day…”_ It really has been a long time since they met and Law hated him but not a day goes by he doesn’t regret thinking so badly about him. Law has to save him. They have to live.

_“There is nothing he can gain from you since you’re like a child of destruction! Leave him alone now!”_ He used to be so stupid but his decisions led him to meeting his saviour. The saviour who’ll live. They’ll live.

_“He is free!!”_ Doflamingo shouldn’t be able to kill such a man. The man who means everything shouldn’t be able to die. It should be impossible. The white on his hands don’t hurt to look at anymore because when they’re gone Cora-san will be there to smile that big, proud smile of his and he will have lived a thousand lifetimes with that alone.

Gunshots are the worst sounds he has ever heard. They rip right through him like all the hurt he’s ever wished on undeserving people. It should have been impossible to hurt a saviour like Cora-san.

Why does Law ever bother hoping for anything?

**7.**

Cora-san goes with a smile, because of course he does.

He goes covered in white snow because Law’s entire life is a joke. He had learned a long time ago that cities so white only had filth and at least he got to know someone as blinding as Cora-san. It’s the last time Law will get to see him but at least it was with a smile because someone like Cora-san didn’t deserve any frown or malice. Cora-san had deserved to live and maybe Law hadn’t been important enough to help him stay.

He doesn’t want to register when his cries are finally heard because he knows that that means he’s gone now. The pain rings in his body, hollow and significant until his own tears feel like they burn. Every step away from him feels like poison, milky white and flowing into his blood stream. He cries out into the night, his hoarse voice muffled by canon fire.

The air is cold as it hits his lungs, his body hurts and Law loved Cora-san more than he wanted to live.

**8.**

Law didn’t believe in any god.

There was no salvation to take away all his pain and bring back the dead.

An entire town had burned. A man had died for him and he had lived. That’s the story and there’s nothing he can do to change that. He can’t make that story pretty as a flower and kind as a nun. He can’t erase his past and he can’t act like it doesn’t hurt. It’s just his shitty life story and he doesn’t have anything inside of him left to care.

+

_“Let’s travel all around the world, just you and I!”_

Law wants to die but he can’t lose the life Cora-san fought so hard to protect so he’ll live only for his sake. Cora-san wouldn’t like him living for someone else, the kind-hearted man that he was but he’s dead now and Law doesn’t know what else to do.

_“I love you!”_

He never got the chance to say it back.

**9.**

Law survives, somewhere between planning a murder and getting himself as far away from Doflamingo as possible, he lives.

He finds himself a friend- he’s a polar bear but he’s seen enough weird things in his life that it doesn’t faze him. With nothing else to do he becomes a pirate and he finds himself a crew. They make for good company and he grows to care for them in some shape and form. He learns to use his devil fruit and becomes a surgeon- not a proper one of course but with a power like his, he can do more than any of them. He still wants to hurt people, within maddened reason- wants to open them up and he can do it without killing them now.

Law still feels empty inside, he’s not sure this is what Cora-san meant by living. If he makes his jolly roger resemble that farewell smile that’s his own business. All he knows is that Doflamingo is going to die one day by his hand and he might as well go with him.

Law survived long enough to watch the white disappear from his body but he certainly doesn’t feel like he’s lived.

+

Law gets his tattoos by the time he’s seventeen and growing sicker and sicker of the North Blue with each passing day.

He loves them- loves the way he can stare at the word _death_ on his knuckles and not feel a single thing anymore. Loves knowing that beneath his clothes, imprinted on his skin there is what keeps him alive. A promise? He’s not sure about that but it’s a memory and a tribute to the one man who had brought hope back in his life. It’s a catalyst and a selfish want all the same- it makes no difference to him.

Law has dark circles under his eyes, something permanent and constant in his life. Maybe it’s why people always look at him like he’s the crazy one but he’s far past the point of caring. If caring had ever even been a thing to feel beyond his time with Cora-san. Law has dark circles under his eyes and they exist there with reason and purpose and most of all history. From late nights, naïve and hopeful in Flevance, through brisk evenings crossing seas with Cora-san and until now planning for a well-earned revenge. They’re as permanent and definite and sorrowful as his tattoos. He doesn’t want to wake up without them- it feels like erased history.

It feels like cheating time.

+

There are whispers of a name belonging to him. _Surgeon of Death,_ it’s ridiculous. As the years go by in the North Blue, everyone looks at him like he’s the crazy one. They call him vicious, cut throat, a monster and all other types of descriptions that make him into one of the most notorious pirates in the North Blue.

He’s just trying to kill some time- isn’t that what everyone does?

**10.**

Monkey D. Luffy is the strangest person he has ever met.

He’s heard of him and his wayward crew before, of course and has always wanted to meet the person who hit the World Government hard. And with all the luck he doesn’t have, he gets to meet him on the very same day Luffy decides to punch a celestial dragon in face. He’s as crazy as they come and then some. It is the funniest thing he has seen in years. He’s weird and eccentric and his entire crew jumps into action like it’s the most mundane part of their day- it probably is.

Luffy notices Bepo before he notices him and his amusement has not faltered for a moment.

Strawhat paints the picture of everything rough and brutish a person can be while also remaining as sunny as summer. He’s a strange one with a weird power that makes his body rubber- Law is immediately taken with the familiar want of cutting him open and trying to understand how in the hell that works. Luffy’s weird, with nothing soft about him and a living legend claims to have wanted to meet him.

He had only been there in that Human Shop to see how it linked back to Doflamingo and here he was fighting along two pirate captains. His life had certainly dealt out a number of strange things.

How things play out from then on is beyond his control.

+

Luffy also has a D. in his name so he decides to save him.

It’s not the entire reason. Whatever the entire reason is, is as lost on him as it is to his crew asking him why. Maybe it’s because it hadn’t even been longer than a week since he had last seen Strawhat and fought alongside him. Maybe it’s because he wants to cut him open and feel a rubber heart in his hands. Maybe it’s because watching him fight was one of the most strangely entrancing things he had ever seen. Maybe Law is more impulsive than he wants to make himself out to be.

Maybe it’s because when Eustass practically threatened Strawhat, he had only smiled in the most unfazed of ways it reminded him of someone long gone and long dead and never coming back.

In any case, Law decided to try and save him. He wants to see if his D. makes him important.

That’s all he can hope to answer.

**11.**

Having his hands in Luffy’s chest feels like he, himself, is teetering between life and death.

Luffy’s body is practically destroyed from the inside out- not as much as his own brother but the sight of his almost burned organs make him think life isn’t just morbid it’s an ironic vindictive bitch. Strawhat is all types of rough. From the way his blood pumps and his bones rattle and his skin shivers- he’s everything rough and adjacent. He’s rough with all the blood still dried over his face that might not all be his. He’s rough with the way his eyes seem to be, even while they’re shut tight, anguished.

Law met Strawhat not even two weeks ago and here he is saving his life without even knowing why. Every beep coming from the heart monitor seems like it’s going to be the last and it might be Law’s last as well but Luffy is also a D. and what a shame it would be if he died in the hands of another one. He doesn’t think history would like that very much- not after the last time it happened- broadcasted for the entirety of Sabaody. Then again life is an ironic vindictive bitch and Law doesn’t have hope for the living or the dead or himself- whatever he is in between all of it.

When Luffy is as stable as he can get him after hours of work- stitched up with his own bare hands, leaving a scar, miles wide across his chest- Law sits there and watches him. He watches every stuttering breath breaking through his body and the unnatural sight of him covered in tubes and deadly still in a way that makes even him uneasy. He watches him and tries not to think at all.

Even unconscious, Luffy has a plethora of surprises up his non-existent sleeve. They take form and shape themselves into a worried, man hating Empress Boa Hancock, a Revolutionary captain and an entire war ship of Impel Down okama- not to mention an anguished Knight of the Sea who hurts for Luffy. It should answer some pressing questions but it really just makes him wonder even more if Luffy is actually real?

They want to protect Luffy and Law isn’t opposed- why would he be? They’re afraid of what’ll happen when he wakes up- Law doesn’t say a thing.

He can go along with them- just until his head is clear of blood and rubber and history.

Law will be fine.

+

Watching Luffy live is a strange sensation that both pains and amazes him.

Luffy lives and he rages and he’s barely coherent but he’s alive. He’s alive and he destroyed his submarine- he’s alive and his anguish can be felt around the entirety of their makeshift camp. No one can catch him- mind-blowing how even in his state Luffy is too strong, too willed to be held down. Luffy rages for his brother like it’ll do anything- like it’ll change the past. He rages as if a thunderstorm could heal the hurting or the dead.

Law tries not to remember the days after Cora-san died and his own weak, crazed mind. He tries not to listen to the way Luffy destroys everything in his path on the search for someone that can’t come back somewhere in the island where they can’t go but he can because he’s Monkey D. Luffy and that says it all. His hand tightens over the straw hat that had become Luffy’s moniker- his identity and makes an impulsive decision.

His feet lead him to where the storm that is another D. rages on through the thick trees of the jungle. There’s the sound of something massive breaking apart and Law’s feet take an abrupt halt.

_“Ace is dead isn’t he?!”_

For a fleeting moment, Law remembers that Luffy is as human as all of them- no matter how impossible he seemed. Law is human as much as people don’t think he is because he’s ruthless, because he’s cruel. People don’t want to think that people like him or like Luffy or like Doflamingo are human. People are so afraid of the humanness that doesn’t equate some meek, fearful character. The truth is humans are horrible so unfortunately someone like Doflamingo is still _human_ at the end of the day. Unfortunately, no matter how courageous or insane or clueless Strawhat is, he’s still _human._

“ _You can’t get back what you’ve lost! What is it that you still have!?”_

Law looks up and through the rough brush of leaves and trees he can see them in the distance. He can see Luffy’s grief stricken face and all the bandages wrapped around his body- the ones he had put there with his own hands because he had to do so on his own for whatever reason. Law takes in the emotion that looks unnatural over his face, watches him struggle then crumble as Jinbei’s words settle in and he walks away from it. Walks away from the clarity and the way Luffy reminds him of the sun breaking over a cold night.

Having something left wasn’t an option when Cora-san died. Law had his bones and his anchor of a body but he might as well have been dead. Law had gotten rid of the white staining his skin and he still hadn’t lived- not in that very moment and certainly not eleven years later. He gets back to the camp, ignoring the questions coming from his crew and settles down. Law’s tattooed hand grasps the straw hat still because he knows it’s important and because he left Kikoku by Luffy’s bedside and he doesn’t have anything else to unconsciously squeeze when his mind gets the better of him.

Someone lands off the shore of Amazon Lily looking for Luffy and of course it has to be someone as absurd and unforgettable as Silvers Raighley. The man had swum through the Calm Belt on the off chance that Strawhat was here and Law can’t even put it past him- he seems to have that effect on people with already waning minds.

The Whitebeard Pirates, Edward Newgate himself, Portgas D. Ace, Boa Hancock, Emperio Ivankov, Jinbei and he’s sure many more and now Silvers Raighley. Saviours just keep raining down on Monkey D. Luffy- he’s one himself.

He hands off the hat to Raighley and avoids any question he still can’t answer.

It’s been eleven years since Cora-san died. Luffy would live, in some way or another there was no other way. Not when something compelled him to live.

It was time for Law to head to the New World, the end was near.

+

(It doesn’t escape him that during those moments under the sea, he could have ended whatever future Luffy had. Could have taken him out right then and there and then maybe the future would be easier for him- he’d like to think it would be.

Life would be a lot easier if he could hurt Luffy the way he doesn’t want to.)

+

Boa Hancock is steely as ever when they meet again.

He’s taken up a position as a warlord and it is on the rarest of occasions when he heads towards a meeting that the Empress herself joins. He can take a guess in the form of a straw hat as to why she’s here. She stares at him with all the contempt of someone of her reputation and he’s not exactly surprised. No one- not even his crew- expected him to start working with the World Government.

When the meeting is over and far from as many prying eyes as they can, Law finds himself pinned to a wall by an impossibly large snake and standing before him is a murderous Snake Princess. She stares him down like he’s nothing. Like his very existence was closer to dirt than her own pet snake. Like every moment before him was a wasted one. They stand on an abandoned navy boardwalk and the wind whips at their clothes but Hancock is as unmoveable as her statues.

“What are you planning to do Trafalgar?” She spits out his name like she can’t wait to get it away from her.

Law raises an eyebrow, the snake- Salome, he believes, still coiling part of its large body around his torso. “I don’t see how that is any business of yours, Empress.”

Salome tightens around his ribcage as Hancock almost bites his neck off- silently of course. They are still in enemy territory and they’re both old enough to know that walls have ears. “It is my business if anything you do harms Luffy. I will kill you where you stand Trafalgar and have your head displayed on my country’s spikes, if you so much as threaten him.”

Law is well aware of his unknown factor trait in the grand scheme of things- in the scheme of Hancock’s narrow interests. She doesn’t ask because she cares or holds some deep sense of altruism for him. Law might have been there on that fateful day to rip through the water and save Luffy’s life but Hancock’s tolerance had begun with Luffy and ended the moment he had left her island. She doesn’t care about what he does beyond that and Law is glad they have something of an understanding.

“I’m not planning on it, Empress. Rest assured.” It’s the only truth he can offer a woman determined on killing him. 

The snake releases itself from around his body and rests curled around its owner. She looks like danger and for a very brief moment reminds him of Luffy- he ignores whatever feeling bubbling in his chest means. He doesn’t have the time for that.

“I’ll believe you for now Trafalgar, but remember. I will kill you if anything you do causes harm to Luffy.” Frankly, Boa Hancock didn’t look like the type to have devotion towards anyone but what with the way she utters Strawhat’s name he couldn’t imagine it any other way. Hancock would try to kill him- would turn him into a statue and have his body shattered for all to see because she’s cruel like that.

“And I’d like to see you try, Boa.” He allows himself the small familiarity because he was still the man who hauled Luffy back from the brink of the dead and there is a certain allowance there that not even Hancock can deny. She’s incredibly strong but Law is on a bit of a reckless streak so threatening her is nothing new.

Law knows how he must look. With infinite dark circles under his eyes- proof of something but not anything anyone can prove. However, he is nothing if not belligerent and defiant and determined. He doesn’t need to jut his chin out to reject any type of sympathy- the gaze Hancock gives him has none.

She turns her back and begins to walk away- it’ll certainly be the last time they see each other in a long while. Everyone was busy these days and Law knew that more than anyone.

“…He’s been doing good. I’m sure you’ll be impressed.” The words slip from her mouth into the dark port and pulls at something in his chest. Her voice sings with devotion, adoration and something like foreboding mockery. Law does not want to be pulled at and certainly not by someone like Boa Hancock.

However, she has no compassion for his deeds or his reasons or any anguish painted over his face. How she was in love with Luffy somehow made sense- crazy being attracted to crazy. People being pulled in by a man with the devil’s luck and people falling under the spell of one hell spawn of a woman. It’s a frightening fit and one that makes bitterness curl only slightly in his gut.

“That’s good to hear…” His words slip and go with the wind and the tugging in his chest is something he’ll ignore for as long as he can. Who even has the time for that anymore?

Boa Hancock does not look back on what’s been done and he hates how she reminds him of Luffy in the worst of ways.

**12.**

Punk Hazard is the last place he expects to meet Monkey D. Luffy again.

It’s strange to see him for the first time in two years, looking as alive as ever, stronger than before. The last time he saw him he was being pinned against a boulder with enough sorrow and anger in his eyes to set off a supernova. Seeing him now, watching him and his crew tear through Punk Hazard is the most Luffy thing he has ever seen.

Law doesn’t waste an opportunity when he sees one and Luffy is too damn Luffy to see through him and his games- which is what Law wants to believe. It’s been two years and Law is almost terrified of what is to come of an alliance between them. Luffy stares Law down with blank eyes on an icy cliff in the middle of a wasteland, stripping him bare and not even caring. Or maybe that’s just what it feels like. He doesn’t have his crew with him, no one questions it- no one questions the life of a madman and with a captain like Luffy the rest of the Strawhats must have stopped asking questions a long time ago. It’s good, Law hates questions and as much of a logical, controlling man that he is he hates having to find reasons for the inner works of his being.

As they set off from Punk Hazard- the game finally in place and surely Doflamingo and his own end near, he thinks, watching Luffy smile dazzlingly at the horizon.

Law could use this boy so well if Luffy weren’t Luffy but in the end it feels like Luffy is using him instead. No- actually it’s just Law giving everything to him. Something about human tidal waves and wilful drowning. Luffy lived- Luffy is still living after two years and it’s been thirteen years since Cora-san died.

People can be brought back from the brink of death but no one can ever bring the dead back to life.

Being a D. didn’t save Luffy and it most certainly didn’t save Law- useless as the letter was for him but watching Strawhat, he thinks there’s a world of difference.

+

The Strawhats threaten him- it’s amusing the same way it is terrifying.

Their ship is something of a comfort because his entire life Law has always been looked at like he was the crazy one but here on the Sunny, he’s as mundane as they come. Since crazy can live here, he takes his time to observe the craziest one of them all. Takes in the way Luffy sits on the figurehead of the ship with no fear of falling over- he’s sure they’re all used to fishing him out the water.

Strong but almost silent footsteps settle beside where he sits- from the corner of his eye he can see Roronoa, the same man who had just had his sword pressed against the edge of his throat, stare down at him with his lone eye.

“You shouldn’t go into this trying to die.” Zoro says like he can see right through his intentions and it’s not like Law is really trying to die with every step he takes. It’s just that it’s inevitable. Law breaks eye contact and glances to where Luffy is resting as careless as he lives and so at ease Law is insatiably captivated.

Luffy is all kinds of rough and all kinds of careless and he’s so much of a D. Law wants to hate him and he hates himself for the envy. Law looks back and Zoro is still staring, still waiting and it makes him anxious.

“And who’s gonna stop me?” He bites out, because he’s always been standoffish and defensive and impolite. He bites back to hold on to the little sanity he thought he had been able to cultivate over the years. That same sanity that whittles down with every moment on this ship with the Strawhats- with every moment spent with Luffy. He bites back because he knows the answer to his own question.

Zoro grins, feral and smug like he knows all of that too. He doesn’t even grace him with a proper response just laughs with all the knowing attitude of someone who knows Luffy better than anyone. This man is probably Luffy’s best friend.

Zoro probably wants to kill Law and knows he can’t.

(Devotion is dangerous.)

Not while Law is still so dead inside.

**13.**

Fighting Doflamingo again for the first time, makes him think of when he was growing up during those three years. Memories of him not knowing how to hold a gun or sword. Memories of him learning how and killing under the amused, unseen eyes of Doflamingo himself.

Doflamingo still looks at him like he’s his- like Law is more Donquixote than anything else.

Law might die, finally, right here on this bridge. Maybe he was dead inside. Maybe Luffy was actually dead and just a walking zombie of sunlight. Maybe revenge is overrated. Maybe death is just boring and everyone looks at it too much. What the hell does Law care?

(He cares about Cora-san and he cares about Luffy.)

Doflamingo wants to know why he trusts Luffy so much? Why he can die here filled with regret and unsaid words and untold emotion?

“ _D. will definitely, cause another storm!”_

It’s none of his damn business.

+

Luffy tells him his brother is fighting somewhere near.

Law has seastone dragging him down and making his mind a confusing jumble of thoughts but he can’t help but almost utter _, Isn’t your brother dead?_ But honestly, if there was anyone at any moment who would have the dead come back to life then it would be him. Him, that is raging through Dressrosa on a killer bull’s back because they’re friends and comrades in arms and there’s an entire gaggle of monsters following him straight to the king. Him, who makes sure to adjust him when he almost slips off the bull as they jump in the air. Him, who Law wishes would just give up on. Luffy won’t let him go quietly.

(It’s always him.)

It’s hard to know if one is special to Luffy because Luffy is Luffy and he seems to make every single existence that passes by his sling shot burning light self-feel like they’re everything. Dressrosa has been nothing if not a humbling experience.

Law doesn’t know if he’s special like the rest, or like the Strawhats. He doesn’t know if he’s special like Zoro is- if he’s another variable like him that has a place that just can’t be explained. He doesn’t call it jealousy because in the end he wants even more than that. Law doesn’t know if he’s special for being a D.

No matter what he wants- Luffy is going to fight for him and this country and his people because that’s his own brand of humanness. 

In the end, Law’s selfish because he wants to have lived.

**14.**

_In some places, there are people who call the family of D. ‘Sworn enemies of the gods’!_

Watching Doflamingo fall, Law wonders if being a D. is what it took. Looking at Luffy- he’s never going to be sure what with the way being a D. is one and the same with who Luffy is now. Luffy didn’t let him go quietly, quietly like the snow, quietly likes waves on the shore. Law doesn’t remember when it was but the thought comes as easily as the wind- it’s not new, just familiar.

_I would die for this man._

He blinks and he sees two infectious smiles side by side in his memories, both rejoicing- both stupid and too wide. He wants to cry- Luffy certainly would not care- tears or laughter they are all the same to him- just being alive. All that glitters, is not gold but Luffy does not glitter- he’s a supernova who has no interest in finery. Frankly the saying is lost on him. Frankly, Luffy is better than gold.

Doflamingo falls- the man he used to admire because he was destruction and everything a lost Law was searching for. The man who didn’t like being reminded of Cora-san because as godly as he wanted to be, he was human. The man who could do anything he wanted and it’s weird to be almost grateful for him- for allowing him to meet Rocinante, for allowing him to watch Luffy destroy him.

He can admit it now, that at some point Law had become his own version of a Donquixote. It didn’t have to mean he was Doflamingo’s though.

Law leans back and watches the earth settle over where Doflamingo was sent back to the Underworld.

He breaths in and out, sees those big grinning smiles, lets the fondness break him entirely.

The boy from the White Town lived. Cora-san would be proud.

**15.**

Law can’t make Cora-san come back.

He can’t show him the pathetic person that he’s become weirdly proud of. He won’t ever be able to understand why he loved Law so much so that he was ready to die for him. He’s fine with it- he has to be. Sengoku said-

_Don’t try to find reason for someone’s love._ And Law gets it. He doesn’t want to cheapen his own adoration for Corazon by trying to dwindle it down to obligation for _something._ Corazon loved him. Law loved him too even if he never got to say it.

That’s all there is to the story. He’s fine with that.

**16.**

Law will never go quietly and Luffy will always love life to a fault.

Luffy has his mercy and his cruelty all packaged into a small, seemingly endless rubber body. Law catches him as they head towards Zou- sitting on the figurehead of himself on Bartolomeo’s ship. After hours of bouncing around whizzing with energy as his newly formed grand fleet celebrated their victory, Luffy is finally as docile as he can be. Law had been watching him because he’s a creep like that who’s been curious to a fault since he was young but this is different. This time he’s not trying to cut anyone open so he can understand how they work- at least not right now. People don’t ever really change and Law is more than alright with that aspect of himself.

He approaches him, finally, after hours of watching and never reaching out when he crept close because he didn’t know what he’d do if Luffy got so close when Law himself was still running on the adrenaline of living and escaping. He’s sure Luffy can feel him there but he doesn’t turn around or open his eyes- almost like he’s waiting. Waiting both does and doesn’t suit Luffy.

“You just keep on living don’t you?” He calls out, not sure why but it’s all his tongue could supply. His mind suddenly turning to how he had let Doflamingo live. How Doffy was still out there with all his breath and his cunning and his cruelty and their history and here was Luffy, living as he does- as he always does.

Luffy still doesn’t look at him but his eyes are open and they watch the horizon like he can’t wait to exist for another day like his entire being isn’t already etched forever in time and in Law’s mind. “Isn’t that what we’re all supposed to do?”

“Doflamingo is still alive though. You think that’s what he’s supposed to do?” Law is nothing if not the remnants of a bitter life and he’s spent his entire time alive testing the boundaries of what he could and would not do- with someone like Luffy the possibilities were endless.

Luffy looks at him like he’s the ridiculous one- finally those big black eyes are on him, wide and blank. He looks at him like he’s stupid. Luffy looks at Law like he knows nothing. Luffy does not look at him like he’s crazy though- it’s new.

“People die and once they’re dead, they’re gone.”

Law should know this. He knows this. He hates this. Who even was Strawhat? Telling him things he’s known for thirteen years of his life with all the cold comfort and truism that shouldn’t suit him but Luffy is nothing if not blunt. Law knew he wasn’t Doflamingo’s prodigy anymore- he wasn’t his sacrifice or his dog. Law knew that he wasn’t pathetic for still thinking about how his sister died waiting for him to come back. Or how his parents died stuck with despair. He knew that the dead don’t do anything but be dead and all anyone is allowed is their grievances. Dead people don’t give anyone anything and no one should want anything from the dead either.

Law knew that Luffy had grieved in his own way- that he wasn’t able to be here in front of him if he hadn’t learned to grow and to overcome his hurt. Sometimes he wishes he could have met Ace and not been sleeping when Sabo visited- he wanted to tell them that their kid brother made him want to dare to try. All he knew was that Luffy was crazy and if he looks hard enough and let’s himself think long enough- he knows Luffy is all types of wonderful.

In the next moment Luffy has limbs, nimble and stretchy as they are, wrapped around his upper body. Luffy is now smiling, so close to his face their noses touch briefly and Law can barely breath. Luffy really makes him want to dare to try. No one else was on this part of the deck right now and Law is glad. All those people were insane but Law is in love with Luffy- he has no room to talk.

(Devotion is dangerous. Love is worse.)

From so close, he comes to the realization that Strawhat is all kinds of pretty- from dreadful through beautiful and to amazing.

“Hey Torao…” Luffy whispers as the wind whips their hair and the sun seems dim compared to Luffy. It probably is. “We won…”

Law was North Blue through and through and the way Luffy smiles makes him think of long winters with his family in that white city; of days trekking through winter islands with Cora-san and watching the sun peek through the clouds and blessing the day with something no one deserved wholeheartedly. 

It’s strange- how unattainable Monkey D. Luffy is.

It’s a stupid thought but sometimes, Law likes to think Cora-san’s voice is sealed into his tattoos- as if the man had been able to give him even more to hold on to. He likes to think that one day if the tattoos were to disappear he could hear his voice again. Hear the stupid way he’d laugh or tell Law how much he loved him. Luffy grins with enough teeth Law thinks maybe there is a world worth saving for others. Luffy’s smile somehow slips under his tattoos too, something comfortable. Mingles in with Cora-san’s kind voice like old friends- his heart aches. Law decides he doesn’t want his tattoos to ever disappear. It’s what’s keeping him alive.

Law isn’t alright- none of them are, not Doflamingo and maybe not Luffy. But they will be- in their own fucked up ways. 

“ _You won…”_ Luffy whispers with so much joy, so much reassurance that he’s here and he’s living and it actually means something. Luffy’s eyes crinkle with happiness, his voice so quiet as he repeats his words and adds new ones. Law didn’t know a thing when he broke through the water and saved a madman that made him dream of all the things he wished he didn’t. “You _lived.”_

Trafalgar D. Water Law is not just the boy from the White Town. He is not just the boy born of inevitable tragedy. He isn’t just the kid wanting to become a Child of Destruction- admiring the wrong people for too long. He isn’t just thirteen years of manifested revenge. Trafalgar D. Water Law is not just a survivor or a sacrifice waiting to happen.

_It’ll be proof that you lived, so hang in there okay?_

Luffy’s smile overlaps with one from so long ago- one he wished he could have savoured for just a bit longer. Those smiles believe in him so much, Law could burst. His fondness and his affection sings sharply in his chest. He bumps his nose with Luffy’s again and he wants to give Luffy his moment to win as well- wants to see him become king of everything.

Law is every fucked up decision he has ever made- he is every step that brought him towards wherever the hell he is now. Law is all his bitterness, his want to cut things open and his taste for soft things and smiles that are too wide and too bright they make him want to live. Cora-san would be proud he’s living for someone who’s worth it- himself. Law is a tangled trait of everything he has ever held on to and everything that has ever loved him.

His hand moves up to rest over Luffy’s deceptively soft hair- holds on for a long while. The horizon doesn’t even matter anymore. He thinks, time has a way of screwing things up. It’s a shame really-

He breaths out, eyes closed only briefly and _finally_ , there isn’t any white on his skin to haunt him anymore. “I _lived.”_

Cora-san and Luffy would have made the loveliest of friends.

**Author's Note:**

> heavy sigh, law makes my heart hurt. i love him, he deserves the world. I as usually loved writing this, it took me way longer than necessary bc im back to school but i digress. I just wanted to go through the entire mess that has been his life and point out that even if doffy lives and the people he loved died- Law is still here and that means something, he'll keep on living being swept up in Luffy's storm and he'll make a legacy of his own.
> 
> I'm surprised i did not try to pull out the Law becoming a Strawhat agenda bc im totally with that but whatever. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this latest story, feel free to comment your thoughts and leave a kudos <3 thank youuu


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